Did you pick your pony? Good.
A Small Detour
Before going on, let’s take a brief detour into the constitution of the United States. Specifically, let’s take a look at the First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
I’ll stop quoting there because this is the part that interests us. Unfortunately, I can’t come up with alternative interpretations of this text. There’s no ambiguity as far as I can tell. So when the Constitutions says Congress shall make no laws establishing religion or prohibiting the exercise of religions, it means that Congress isn’t supposed to support one religion or prevent people from practicing one on their own.
Moving on
Is confidence a religious or secular concept? Trick question. By itself, it obviously has no religiosity. But what does it mean if we take a synonym of confidence — trust — and combine it with the word “God,” as in, “In God We Trust?”
This depends, of course, on the option you chose in our first exercise. If you chose “1,” then you are in agreement with Judge Frank Damrell of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Reuters wrote of his ruling that “in his opinion”‚In God We Trust‚ is secular in nature and use, and its appearance on coins and currency does not show government coercion on behalf of monotheism. (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2629&ncid=2629&e=4&u=/nm/20060613/pl_nm/life_atheist_lawsuit_dc_1)
If you chose “2,” you’re in the company of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) when they quote the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Aronow vs. the United States (1970): “The Supreme Court has rejected previous attempts to eradicate all symbols of this country’s religious heritage from the public’s view.”
Finally, if you chose “3,” you side with Michael Newdow, the atheist who previously litigated to have “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. This time, he’s trying to have the national motto declared as unconstitutional on the grounds that it is a religious statement. Though the Judge ruled against him, much to the ACLJ’s delight, he will appeal.
Paying the Piper
The problem is that all but Option 3 poses a critical question of faith for people who believe in God. Option 1 obviously takes the divinity out of God. To support Judge Damrell’s decision on the basis that a religious statement is secular is tantamount to rejecting one’s own faith. Similarly, there is a problem in following the ACLJ’s attempt to hide God behind the cloak of doing justice to historical traditions. Last time I checked, God isn’t a mere nostalgic reminder of the past for the religious majority, but the very center of their faith. To stand behind either options 1 or 2, even as a means to deny Newdow’s legal challenge to remove “In God We Trust,” reeks of hypocrisy.
The fact is, the country’s original motto was E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One). It was selected at the beginning of the American Revolution in 1756 only to be replaced with “In God We Trust” by a law passed by Congress in 1956. Unless one is willing to compromise the honesty of one’s faith or reject the constitution outright, the only logical conclusion is that to be constitutional, the motto should be removed from currency just as “Under God” should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.
After all, isn’t it the mantra of true political conservatism that the government that governs least, governs best? If so, what business does the government have with our personal religious beliefs?